In fact, some people were not just dumbfounded but outright angry, and sometimes offended. I think it was especially legal and political experts, and those laymen of a more formal disposition, that were more likely to be angry or offended, and this provides a clue as to what happened last night. What was supposed to take place on a legal plane had taken place on a symbolic plane.

When there is a clash of incompatible conceptual frames, there are at least two possible responses. One is humour, and the other is frustration. As it seems impossible to believe that what happened in the Catalan parliament last night was an elaborate prank, frustration - leading to anger - is a natural response.

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This all makes last night's events at the Catalan parliament very much like an instance of performance art. In the 19th century the effect the Catalan separatists had last night used to be called épater le bourgeois. Today we call it trolling

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman